The Hamilton Spectator

The root causes of encampments

MARVIN ROSS MARVIN ROSS IS A DUNDAS WRITER/ PUBLISHER WHO OPERATED A POPULAR BLOG WITH DR. DAVID LAING DAWSON. IT CAN BE READ AT MIND YOU: REFLECTION OF MENTAL ILLNESS, MENTAL HEALTH AND LIFE DAWSONROSS.WORDPRESS.COM/

It’s commendable that Hamilton council wants to solve the encampment problem, but the solution is complex and beyond its jurisdiction involving inadequate health care, housing and income. According to the York University Homeless Hub, 30-35 per cent of the homeless are mentally ill including up to 70-75 per cent of homeless women. An additional 20-25 per cent have both a mental illness and an addiction. Often they are released from hospitals and jails without proper community supports.

In health care, Canada does not have enough psychiatrists. According to the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), in 2019, Canada had 13.1 shrinks/100,000 population, but many provinces had far fewer. Compared to Europe, this is pathetic and on par with countries like Cyprus (12) and Malta (11). Switzerland has 52, the U.K. 18, and Norway 25. The CMA suggests that 15 per 100,000 would be an appropriate number.

Thanks to our emptying psychiatric hospitals without replacing them with community supports, beds have been drastically cut. Total hospital beds in Canada have been falling since the early 1990s. Between 1976 and 1990, there were an analysis in the Breach, up to 1993, Canada funded 10,000 plus social housing units per year. Thanks to the austerity of Liberal Finance Minister Paul Martin, that ended. Low interest rates resulted in a hot real estate market and rapidly rising prices. In 2008, we saw the U.S. housing bubble burst, but that did not happen in Canada.

Allowances for the disabled in Ontario are often referred to as legislated poverty as a single disabled adult receives all of $1,228 a month when anything below $19,930 is poverty. You would be hard pressed to find a bachelor apartment in Hamilton for the total allowance paid. That leaves nothing for food or anything else.

Trudeau promised that he would bring in a Canada Disability Benefit to top up the meagre income afforded by the provinces (Bill C-22) but that died when he called the last election. It was reintroduced in this session, passed the House unanimously and is now at the Senate. Best guess is that it will be at least a year before the poor get any relief if at all.

The bottom line is that we will not see any dent in homelessness until we start providing adequate health coverage, supported affordable housing and income support commensurate with a first world compassionate country. Till then, the encampments, like the poor, will always be with us.

COMMENT

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2023-05-30T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-30T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thespec.pressreader.com/article/281736978832314

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